President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has kept interest rates too high and that he might call the central bank chief.
“I haven’t called him. I might call him,” Trump said in an Oval Office executive action signing ceremony Wednesday evening. “I believe he’s making a mistake by not lowering interest rates, and I think, as well as we’re doing, we could do much better.”
Trump has publicly attacked Powell over the past several days, calling the Fed chair “a major loser” whose “termination cannot come soon enough.” Trump nominated Powell to his role in 2017 but has since publicly feuded with him. But he softened his stance Tuesday, saying he had “no intention” of firing Powell after advisers warned Trump that terminating the central bank chief would backfire legally and economically, sources familiar with the matter told CNN.
But Trump renewed his line of attack on Powell on Wednesday, accusing him of playing politics with interest rate cuts.
“He’s keeping rates too high,” Trump said, as also he criticized Powell for acting too slowly to raise rates several years ago in the early days of the inflation crisis. “He historically has been late… he was recommended by a certain person I’m not particularly happy with.”
Trump and other White House officials have suggested that the Fed’s action to lower rates in the late stages of the Biden administration — but not (yet) under Trump — could be political. There is no evidence the independent Fed is taking a political stance, and Powell has vehemently denied suggestions that the Fed plays politics when making its monetary policy decisions.
Powell has said repeatedly the Fed will only make a decision to raise or lower rates after careful consideration and will not rush a decision or issue an emergency rate cut before the rate-setting committee’s next scheduled meeting in May.
“He will hopefully do the right thing – the right thing is to lower interest rates, so we’ll see what happens,” Trump said. “I think we’re we’re sitting on something that’s going to be very good with all the tariff money starting to come in. Our country is going to be doing really well, and hopefully he’ll, you know, we don’t have inflation.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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